how do I educate myself best on ETFs? Do I need to trade them actively or just let them alone most of the time

Active trading of stocks is risky if you mean short-term, hours, days or weeks.

ETFs are mostly setup to mimic an index of some sort so the will track similar to index mutual funds. Where a mutual fund may have a $3,000 initial purchase and either buy or sell fees, ETFs have no limits or minimums and only your standard brokerage buy/sell fee.

As far as management, an annual rebalance, if needed, is sufficient. If you are adding new money during the year, you can target areas that have under performed. I use a spreadsheet to manager our ETFs:

Announcements

The Retirement Investing Board
This is the board for all discussions related to Investing for and during retirement. To keep the board relevant and Foolish to everyone, please avoid making any posts pertaining to political partisanship. Fool on and Retire on!

When Life Gives You Lemons
We all have had hardships and made poor decisions. The important thing is how we respond and grow. Read the story of a Fool who started from nothing, and looks to gain everything.

Work for Fools?
Winner of the Washingtonian great places to work, and Glassdoor #1 Company to Work For 2015! Have access to all of TMF's online and email products for FREE, and be paid for your contributions to TMF! Click the link and start your Fool career.